Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition) (15 page)

It was obvious that Beast was laboring with the engine; the amount of profanity coming from him was increasing in volume and floridness.

At that moment, a puff of smoke emerged from the five-inch gun on the
John Paul Jones
. Seconds later, they heard the sound of the gun actually being fired, noise following
visual much like a baseball player being watched from the grandstands, with the sound of the hit ball following an instant after contact has already been made.

“They’re attacking?” said Beast.

Raikes shook her head. “Warning shot. That’s SOP for …”

Beast looked skeptical. “For what? Alien invasion?”

The shell landed in an explosion of water and spray within range of the lead stinger. A clear message had been sent.

Hopper said grimly, “
That’s
gonna piss ’em off.”

Nothing happened for several seconds. During that time, Hopper briefly prayed that the aliens/creatures/beings would emerge from the ships, hands in the air, eagerly trying to explain that they were simply there by mishap and meant no harm to anyone on Earth.

Instead there was a quiet sound, like a whisper of a breeze, and a single cylindrical object was fired from the lead stinger, blasted out of what appeared to be some sort of launch array. It hurtled lazily through the air, heading straight toward the
John Paul Jones
.

Hopper watched with a sinking heart.
That can’t be good
.

In the destroyer’s CIC, radar officer Benjamin Rush was watching his radar screen carefully. They’d only just managed to bring it back online, and it kept flickering in
and out while the system’s big brains continued to make corrections and adjustments. Around him a row of other young officers, wearing headphones, were monitoring large, complex screens and struggling to operate the elaborate consoles of the AEGIS weapons system that was, at that moment, extremely hit or miss.

Abruptly an incoming blip lit up his screen, cutting across the monitor with a trajectory that was taking it directly toward the ship. “Incoming track, zero-seven-three-six,” he called out.

Over the intraship radio, Mullenaro’s voice came back: “Acquire incoming. Kill with guns. Light ’em up, son.”

The order was instantly relayed, and two seconds later the Phalanx CIWS, consisting of two anti-missile Gatling guns on the foredeck, sprang to life. The CIWS functioned exactly as it was supposed to, as the guns sprayed so many bullets that it created a virtual wall of metal. Before anyone even could get a clear look at it, the cylinder disintegrated against the ship’s firepower.

In the
John Paul Jones
CIC, a moment of relief and triumph rippled through the officers, pleased that good, old-fashioned American technology had triumphed over whatever the hell it had been that this interloper was attempting to throw at them.

That sense of good feeling lasted right up until radar officer Rush suddenly called out, “Incoming tracks! Coordinating zero-niner-seven-three.” He stopped for a moment, overwhelmed by what he was seeing, a harsh reality crashing down on him. “There’s too many of them.”

He was right. There were at least ten of the cylinders, maybe more, hurtling through the air, zeroing in on the destroyer with lethal accuracy.

The CIWS was employed yet again as the Gatling guns cut loose in a wide spread. One by one the cylinders were blown out of the sky as the big guns continued to cut a swath through the assault that was coming straight at them.

They almost managed to take out all of the cylinders. But they fell short of their goal by one.

A single cylinder landed on the deck not ten feet in front of the starboard observation deck. Brownley and Mullenaro were both there, and they stared down at it in utter bewilderment.

The narrow white cylinder, which had landed surprisingly noiselessly on the deck, was still quivering slightly from the impact. Rather than at an angle, as one would have expected from the trajectory, it was upright. It looked to Brownley to be about four feet tall and less than a foot in diameter. Other than presenting a threat that someone might trip over it, the cylinder appeared utterly harmless. It might well have been made of plastic.

Mullenaro was no less confused, but he was also more outwardly irritated. “What kind of jack wagon crap—is this somebody’s idea of a game?”

Suddenly the cylinder transformed, within an eye-blink, from white to red.

Then it detonated. In an explosive flash, Brownley, Mullenaro and the entire starboard observation deck vaporized.

The stinger turned its attentions to the
Sampson
. This time, though, they were firing the cylinders much faster, but one at a time instead of a barrage, as if whoever was
shooting them at the destroyer was testing his marksmanship.

The
Sampson
’s Gatling guns roared to life, but the speed of the cylinders made targeting them more problematic. Several were picked off in midair, but one landed on the foredeck, transformed from white to red, and detonated. The explosion ripped through the ship. The windows on the bridge, made from reinforced glass that should have held together, blew apart. It was specially treated so as to shatter into dull pieces should breakage occur, and it performed as it had been designed to do. As a result, no one had to worry about getting shards of glass in their eyes. Still, the officers dropped to the floor to avoid the large chunks that were flying every which way.

“We’re hit!” shouted Sinclair.

“Signal all ships!” Stone shouted over the wailing klaxon. “Full reverse! We need battle space!”

The engine room responded immediately. The
Sampson
started to pull back. It wasn’t much; a ship as large as the
Sampson
wasn’t designed for quick maneuvers. But it was just barely enough to allow another cylinder to go screaming past them and land harmlessly in the water.

“Miss!” Sinclair called out.

The running narrative was beginning to annoy the crap out of Stone. “Save the play-by-play. Are we targeting this thing or not? Sling some MK 41s their way!”

His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Leong, looked up from her instruments. “Sir, comm’s down again,” said the XO. “That thing that hit us … it scrambled everything that we had just gotten back online. Computers are down, radar’s down. All we’ve got are the close-in weapon systems.”

“All this hardware and we’re down to throwing rocks?” said Stone. He grit his teeth, seeing that the
John Paul Jones
was still under assault. “We’ve got to get in there. They need cover.”

“Five-inch was knocked off-line, but now is moments away,” said the XO.

“We’re not waiting,” said Stone. “Rudder hard right, engines full. We’ve got to get in there and give them some shade. Don’t tell me the gun’s not up.” Through his binoculars, he stared at the launcher on the opposing ship that had been firing those strange white cylinders at them. It had paused in its assault. They were probably reloading. He had no intention of sitting around waiting for them to finish the process. “Take that launcher out.”

With that order, the
Sampson
reversed course and hurtled forward, straight into the teeth of the enemy.

In the crippled RHIB, Hopper watched with growing horror as he saw the
Sampson
angling straight toward the stinger.

“Screw this helpless crap,” he said, suddenly full of resolve. He shouted to Raikes as he pointed, “Where we saw that … that creature standing before! Shoot there! Maybe it’s their bridge or whatever!”

Raikes needed no further urging. She swung the .50 cal around and opened fire.

At first the bullets didn’t penetrate. Instead Hopper saw lights flashing in response to where the bullets would have been impacting. There was some sort of field there, invisible, impenetrable.
Well, sure, because they’re freaking
aliens, so naturally they have invisible shields and crap like that
.

And then, all of a sudden, areas of the shield weren’t flaring back into invisibility as they had been before. Instead patches seemed to be hanging there randomly, black pieces of light as opposed to the other, unseen sections of the field. Spiderweb cracks spread through them, and Hopper immediately realized that—unlike the movies—the alien force fields weren’t limitless in their resistance. They might be pure energy, but they were no more invulnerable than “bulletproof” glass. Give it enough of a pounding, and it would eventually shatter and break.

“Pour it on, Raikes!”

He moved behind the .50, helping Raikes to pinpoint her assault, which she did with malicious glee. As that happened, though, something moving on the forward section of the stinger grabbed Hopper’s attention. He recognized it as the launch array that had fired off whatever the hell those weapons were that had impacted on the destroyers. It was rotating. Worse, it was rotating in their direction.

“We’ve got to move,” he said nervously.

“Want me to get out and push?” Raikes offered.

The engine abruptly roared to life. They looked around in delighted surprise. Beast was crouched over the engine, holding two wires that he had twisted together. He hurriedly wrapped them in electrical tape to keep the connection solid.

Hopper leaped over to the helm. He brought the RHIB around, but the cylinder launcher was swiveling to acquire him. There was no way he was going to be able to get enough distance between himself and the stinger before it unloaded its lethal charge upon him.

Then he heard the distant sound of a 5-inch gun being
deployed. Seconds later, the ordnance from the
Sampson
, fired with pinpoint accuracy, obliterated the launcher before it could fire at Hopper and the RHIB.

Hopper exhaled in relief, but that breath caught in his throat as the stinger, with the faint sound of something within it powering up, launched itself once more, much farther than it had before. It sailed through the air and landed no more than a hundred feet aft of the
Sampson
, practically right on top of them.

Oh God
, thought Hopper.

Oh God
, thought Stone, realizing that he was seeing technology that simply did not exist anywhere on Earth, not that he knew of.
It’s true. We’re in the middle of an alien invasion
.

A young helmsman stumbled back from his post, eyes wide with terror. On some level, Stone couldn’t blame him. These were the best and the brightest that the Navy had to offer, and they believed themselves to have been trained to handle anything that was thrown at them. But how the hell do you handle something that is completely outside the realm of anyone’s experience?

But that was no excuse for deserting one’s post.
“Back on the con, Behne!”
said Stone.

Seaman Behne nodded, retaking his position.

“Hard ahead, full,” said Stone.

“Aye, sir,” said Behne with determination, dialing up the throttle.

The powerful engines of the
Sampson
drove the vessel forward. The alien ship crouched low in the water.
Like a lion in the high weeds
, thought Stone bleakly, but once again he didn’t allow any of that worry to show. “Steady, people. WEPS, all guns forward, maximum rate of fire.”

The 5-inch guns of the
Sampson
were unleashed upon the alien ship. There were no more attempts at communication—they would do all their talking with their weaponry. Stone reasoned that since their guns had been able to take out that weird-ass missile launcher, they should likewise be able to inflict some serious damage on the rest of the ship.

His reasoning turned out to be severely faulty.

The alien vessel shuddered under the assault, little bursts of light erupting everywhere that the
Sampson
’s guns made contact. But it didn’t seem to be doing any substantial damage—they had some manner of force field.

Stone’s mind was already racing.
It must be a limited resource. Otherwise we’d never have been able to take out that launcher. Perhaps they have to deploy it in specific areas of the ship, selectively. Right now they must have all their shields concentrated on forward assault. If we deploy the other ships around, surround it …

That was when he saw another barrage of those same bizarre cylinder weapons being fired their way. They were arcing straight toward Stone’s ship.
Dammit! They must have a secondary launcher!

“Kill tracks! Fire at will! All of it!”

“Gun it! Gun it!”
Hopper shouted to himself for encouragement as he opened up the throttle

The RHIB hurtled through the water as fast as Beast could make it go, eating up the distance between them and the immediate field of battle. He continued to nurse the engine, though, making sure his patchwork job held together. Hopper steered straight toward the stinger, keeping on a steady path, praying he would get there in time.

The stinger withstood the pounding that the
Sampson
was unleashing upon it. It was as if the strange vessel was sending a silent message:
Go ahead. Take your best shot. Is that all you can do? Because we can do so much more
.

From his angle Hopper could see the second weapons launcher rising from the side of the stinger. Raikes opened fire on it without even having to be told. It made no difference. This time the bullets pinged away without having the slightest impact.

Hopper didn’t hesitate. He brought the RHIB around in an arc, determined to place himself between the stinger and the
Sampson
. His hope was to distract it, provide an immediate nuisance, pull its attention away from the destroyer. Maybe even hurt it if he was close up to it. All he knew was that he had to protect the
Sampson
. He had to protect his brother. With one hand he had binoculars to his eyes, and he could actually make out Stone in the bridge, shouting orders, pointing, never losing control, never losing hope …